Calgarians protest as Trump shuns immigrants
As demonstrations took place in cities across the United States on Sunday, a small but vocal crowd gathered outside the U.S. consulate office in Calgary to protest President Donald Trump’s travel ban targeting immigrants.
Dozens of protesters chanted “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here,” adding their voices to those being heard around the world.
Athba Samarai, who attended the Calgary rally with her husband and two children, said she cancelled her upcoming flight to Dubai, via Seattle, for her sister’s wedding.
Samarai, a professional accountant, is Iraqi-born and a permanent Canadian resident who has been living in the country for three years.
Her family and her in-laws live in the U.S., where they came as refugees after the Iraq War. She said they are now too scared for her father-in-law, who has a green card, to travel to Canada for fear that he won’t be able to return to the U.S.
“My aunt lives there with her family, they were refugees — and they live in absolute fear,” she said.
“That brings back very ugly memories for all of us ... the reason why we left home is because we were hoping for freedom and we were hoping for being in a nation that respects human values, and that to us was a shock.”
At a news conference in Ottawa on Sunday, Canada’s immigration minister said Canadian permanent residents from the seven predominantly Muslim countries targeted in the travel ban, in addition to dual citizens with a Canadian passport, can still enter the U.S.
But even with that reassurance, Samarai said the family still fears the potential consequences of the travel ban.
“My family is really scared and I’m scared because this whole thing does not fall in what is called human rights,” she said.
Community organizer Grant Neufeld, who joined Sunday’s protest, called the travel ban “horrifying.”
“We need to show, as people in airports across the U.S. are showing, that we do not accept this,” Neufeld said.
“This is not an OK situation. This is not normal. This is a violation of fundamental human rights, this is a violation of the rule of law. It’s just fundamentally wrong.”
Kamal Ibrahim, who also took part in the demonstration Sunday, said he knows of a family from Iraq with Canadian passports who were prevented from travelling to the U.S. on Saturday.
“They hold the Canadian passport after long years of process to get it — they showed that they deserved this passport,” he said.
“Fifty years back you were born in this country, you are not allowed to cross the borders, although you hold a Canadian passport. That’s why we are here and this is where I sense that something wrong is happening, that we need to do something, we need to prevent something like this.”
Ramina Shlah said in a phone interview that a lot of confusion remains surrounding how the U.S. travel ban will affect Canadians. Her mother is a dual citizen of Canada and Syria, and the family is worried she might encounter problems at the border during a trip to the States next month.
Shlah noted she had cousins come to Canada as refugees from Syria, via the United States, in September. “If it was a few months later, they wouldn’t have been able to come,” she said.
Neufeld said at the rally that he hopes to see more “concrete action” and direct opposition from the Canadian government to the U.S. travel ban.
“A clear stand that this is unacceptable, this is a violation of human rights,” he said. “And we as Canadians will not stand for it.”
Federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said Canada will continue its “long-standing tradition of being open to those who seek sanctuary” and that the country will provide temporary shelter to any people stranded because of the ban.
The three-month U.S. travel ban targets people from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya. Trump’s executive order also banned refugees from Syria indefinitely, pending a review of the application process.